2005 Picture Of The Year

In my search through our old images if there’s one image that perfectly captures the year’s biggest US story (Hurricane Katrina), it’s this one.

A fleet of New Orleans school buses sit underwater, unused in evacuation efforts…

Update: I meant to clarify my choice earlier in the day, but somehow I lost the text. The buses, to my mind, are a metaphor for the whole evacuation and post flooding chaos. Pictorially they remind us that response at the local, state, and federal levels was often bungled due to poor planning and resource allocation problems.

Michael Yon’s photo of the soldier cradling a dying girl ought to be in any collection of “photos of the year.”

jcJanuary 3, 2006

Didn’t the Panthers’ cheerleaders cause the biggest spike in traffic to Wizbang? Shouldn’t that be the story of the year?

tazJanuary 3, 2006

I liked the photo-shoped version of the buses parked into letters that spell “WTF”

this photo makes me think of that everytime.

Bat OneJanuary 3, 2006

I can only second Russ’ comment above. I have looked for Michael Yon’s breathtakingly poignant photo at each such collection, and I am disappointed not to find it here. I would not quibble with the “Buses” photo, except for my fervant belief that anything that focuses attention on the nobility and honor displayed by our military men and women serving in Iraq must, perforce, take precedent.

They’re story is far, far more important than some big-ass thunderstorm.